User Agent and Assistive Technology Support Notes

Description

The objective of this technique is to provide a brief overview of
how data has been organized into a DataGrid or a brief explanation
of how to navigate the grid.

As Flash does not provide a summary attribute, this descriptive text
will be added to the DataGrid's accessible desription instead. This
approach will make the summary information available to people who
use screen readers; the information is not displayed visually.

The summary is useful when the table has a complex structure (for
example, when there are several sets of row or column headers, or when
there are multiple groups of columns or rows). The summary may also
be helpful for simple data tables that contain many columns or rows
of data.

Examples

Example 1: Adding a summary to a datagrid in the accessibility control panel

This is an example of a datagrid being added to the stage in Flash
Professional from the Components panel. The description field is used
in the accessibility control panel in Flash to serve as the summary
information for the datagrid.

Create a new Flash file (.fla) or open an existing one to put
a datagrid into.

Open the Flash components panel from the Window menu

Drag a datagrid component onto the stage and position as desired.

Select the datagrid component and add the summary information
to the description field for datagrid, using the accessibility control
panel.

Example 2: Adding a summary to a datagrid with ActionScript 3

This is a basic AS3 example of a DataGrid component that has summary
text added as its accessible description.

Tests

Procedure

If the Flash movie contains a DataGrid component, confirm that summary
text has been added to it through the corresponding accessible description
property.

Expected Results

The above is true.

If this is a sufficient technique for a success criterion, failing this test procedure does not necessarily mean that the success criterion has not been satisfied in some other way, only that this technique has not been successfully implemented and can not be used to claim conformance.